Omaha Steve complains about no tornado warnings

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3418391

Oh my.

This pertains to the "stealth" tornado that struck Omaha the same night franksolich was saving livestock.

Omaha Steve  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Jun-10-08 07:12 AM
Original message

No warning of tornado for Millard (Omaha) residents 2 A.M. Sunday morning 500 homes damaged
   
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=103533...

BY KAREN SLOAN
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Millard residents had no warning of the tornado that ripped through their area Sunday.

Warning sirens did not sound until minutes after the tornado hit, local emergency officials said.

They said the National Weather Service didn't issue its tornado warning — which triggers the siren system — until after the tornado had touched down.

City officials met with representatives from the Douglas County Emergency Management Agency, Douglas County 911 and the weather service Monday to discuss the sequence of events.

The agency officials concluded that the weather circumstances of Sunday's tornado were unique and that little could have been done differently.

"From the information we have, it doesn't seem like anyone dropped the ball," Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey said.

Mark Conrey, director of the Douglas County 911 Center, said officials there will review tornado warning policies and will consider making high winds a potential trigger to set off the sirens.

"They were sitting there without any warning," Conrey said. "We got a call from someone who said their roof was gone, then the warning came in" from the weather service.

FULL story at link.

My question to my esteemed fellow Nebraskan Omaha Steve is: who runs Omaha?

He doesn't happen to be a guy with a (D) after his name, does he, one of these fondlers of urban machine politics, which he's trying to re-establish in Omaha after nearly 50 years of clean politics there?

Anyway.

iamjoy  (1000+ posts) Tue Jun-10-08 07:57 AM
Response to Original message

1. Scary
   
On the other hand, using high winds as a trigger for sirens may not be the best move. If high winds trigger it and people go into their shelters only to find out there is no storm - well, that happens enough times and people may stop taking the sirens as seriously.

I dunno, I'm in Florida. We have no sirens, we have no shelters. If we ever get an F-4 or F-5 the human cost would be horrendous.

MuseRider  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Jun-10-08 08:37 AM
Response to Original message

2. That is very scary!
   
Are you close to the area? I hope you and yours are OK.

They spend days telling us we are all going to die on Thursday (well, not quite that bad) and then don't make it a priority to have enough weather radios for the population. Happened here last week. Signs all over town that they were sold out. If it was not the weather service who I respect quite a lot I would think somebody was getting a kick out of all the scare tactics they employ. Even I get scared and I love storms and rarely even flinch until things look dodgy close to me. Still, having the radios will only help with the warnings they give and everyone around this area should know that tornadoes are possible with a severe thunderstorm.

I sincerely hope they do not start with the sirens for high wind. Life is a risk and I think they do the best job that can be done now with things like they are. I say this with my house intact. I don't know how I would feel if I was one of those who lost theirs. Most likely I would feel the same way I do now but it never pays to be judgmental when it is someone else who suffered.

Night time tornadoes scare me the most.

Omaha Steve  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Jun-10-08 05:17 PM
Response to Reply #2

4. ALL of my friends and family are fine
   
One co worker has a home that wasn't touched. 100 feet away is a home 1/2 gone.

SheilaT  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Jun-10-08 09:51 AM
Response to Original message

3. At 2 A.M. a lot of people would have been in bed, asleep, and may not have been awakened by the sirens.

However, I was once blasted awake by them at 7 A.M. I live real close to one of the towers, but when I'm sound asleep I don't know if I'd wake up. I've been known to sleep through small earthquakes.

dixiegrrrrl  Donating Member  (478 posts) Tue Jun-10-08 06:05 PM
Response to Reply #3

6. I slept thru a hurricane !
   
It wasn't "supposed to" come our way, changed direction in the middle of the night, I woke up at 6 am to a lot of telephone messages and 2 feet of water around the house, 70 mile an hour winds gaining strength by the minute.

Got out fine, came back to 8 huge trees on the house.

so our town is still talking about a warning siren for tornadoes.

We get enough of them that a siren would be nice.

The dog will hear it and let us know..he lets us know of every rumble from a thunder storm in the next county.

defendandprotect  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Jun-10-08 05:24 PM
Response to Original message

5. Bushed again --- "Doin' a great job, Brownie" . . .
   
A friend of mine in NC said that they had sirens going off for like 24 hours a few days ago warning of tornadoes ---

Are we counting on FEMA, Brownie --- National Guard?

[Chris_]

Nanny State!  Nanny State!  You are responsible for ALL things natural and supernatural!!

PLEASE Nanny State!  Treat me as the infant I am.  Cover me and feed me and burp me and change my diapers and protect me from the weather gods!

What, you didn't see this one coming?  *WHAAAH!* *WHAAAH!  BAD Nanny State!  Bad Nanny State!  I *HATE* You Nanny State!

Baby want teat now!   Sleepy....

[djones520]

The one issue I had while I was back at Shaw handling Point Weather Warnings (I was the guy who issued all the warnings for every base in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and Georgia), was that I had no cross communication with the National Weather Service on what I issued and what they issued.

There where a number of situations where I issued Tornado Warnings for bases, when the National Weather Service didn't have anything out for that region.  My word was only getting out to the people who lived on that base.  Not to the civilians who also lived in the area.

Offut AFB is pretty near Omaha.  I can't really go back and check the records to see if a warning was issued for them or not, but if so, that would just further illustrate the need for more cross-communication between our agencies.

[dandi]

defendandprotect  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Jun-10-08 05:24 PM
Response to Original message

5. Bushed again --- "Doin' a great job, Brownie" . . .
   
A friend of mine in NC said that they had sirens going off for like 24 hours a few days ago warning of tornadoes ---

Are we counting on FEMA, Brownie --- National Guard?

Man, I'm getting closer to voting for this BarackStar!â„¢ fellow. I mean, if he's going to be able to stop tornadoes and stuff. How does that work? Does he fly up into them then fly in a direction opposite their spin like Superman until they're neutralized, or does he strike his staff three times on the ground and shout "Change!" and the tornado becomes a shower of Tootsie Rolls?

The whole country's gonna be Disney World, I tell ya.

[jukin]

DUmmies really are on the next level of naivety........no...no, three level above standard naivety.

[Ptarmigan]

Warnings would be issued through radio and television.

[Chris_]

Warnings would be issued through radio and television.

About DUmmies?  You betcha.

[Airwolf]

As some of you might know I live near Omaha. Omaha Steve as well all know is a class one retard of the worse kind. The storm that she is whining on about hiy around 2:17 am while the weather service radar was in mid sweep in the opposit direction. The storm was moving at around 60-70 MPH and had two tornandos form, an EF-1 and an EF-2 they later merged and weakend after that.

Those tornandos hit at the one time when it was perfect for them to do so. there was not watches or warnings out and the only weather guy that was around locally at the TV stations was an Iraqi war vet that just thought it was a good idea to hang about because he felt the situation called for it due to the weather. The sirens were turned on 7-10 minutes after the storms hit because thats what the radar showed and theirs nothing that could have been done differently.   

[FlaGator]

I think the fact that someone lives in Nebraska is enough of a tornado warning. It's like living in Florida and being surprised that there are thunderstorms every afternoon.

[djones520]

As some of you might know I live near Omaha. Omaha Steve as well all know is a class one retard of the worse kind. The storm that she is whining on about hiy around 2:17 am while the weather service radar was in mid sweep in the opposit direction. The storm was moving at around 60-70 MPH and had two tornandos form, an EF-1 and an EF-2 they later merged and weakend after that.

Those tornandos hit at the one time when it was perfect for them to do so. there was not watches or warnings out and the only weather guy that was around locally at the TV stations was an Iraqi war vet that just thought it was a good idea to hang about because he felt the situation called for it due to the weather. The sirens were turned on 7-10 minutes after the storms hit because thats what the radar showed and theirs nothing that could have been done differently.   

Airwolf, no offense intended here.  I'm not sure who fed that story to you, but thats a total load of bullshit.

The WSR-88D that is in Omaha does a full 360 degree base level scan in a matter of seconds.  It takes 4 minutes to do a full 360 degree scan of all levels and build a composite image of the entire atmosphere within 240 miles.  The 2 primary tools used by that radar to spot a tornado (or storm that is capable of producing a tornado) can easily see it coming from atleast 120 miles away.  There is constant 24 hour weather coverage by the NWS, and during a severe weather event like that I can gaurantee you that there was someone in that office who was supposed to be monitoring that radar screen and nothing else.

Someone with the NWS seriously dropped the ball on this storm, and put thousands of peoples lives in danger.  It was not because of lack of radar coverage or anything like that.  It's because someone was dicking around not doing their job, and I hope that their ass got fired over this.